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Bought Phone Off Craigslist Now Reported Stolen

Kaloudtu

Kaloudtu

Lurker
Yeah So Before buying this I had a fear of this. the phone is blocked from the T-mobile network.But I think I'm not much at a bad spot because when I bought it from the seller he told that the phone was his sister's phone that she bought for him as a gift but he said he didn't need it and so he wanted to sell it. I took a picture of the full receipt(Retail Instalment Obligation) which has the original buyers name,phone, and full address on it. My question is what can I do now?
 
Sounds like the seller reported it stolen for insurance, or stole it themselves. You could ask the seller what's going on, or go to a T-Mobile store and see what they say.

In the future when buying, meet the seller at the phone store and have them verify it's not stolen. Then have the phone transferred into your name while the seller is still there, after that they can't report it stolen.
 
I called T-Mobile customer service about the phone they said They can't do anything until the original buyer take it off reported stolen.
 
Sept1967 said:
Go get your money back from who you bought it from
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Easier said than done, i'm afraid. It's a common scam to sell a working phone and then either stop paying the contract or report it stolen for the insurance. By the time the phone is blacklisted, the seller is most likely long gone. Even places that check imei numbers can't guarantee that in the future the phone won't stop working.
 
I tell people all the time you need to meet seller in store if u buy off craiglist. Too many scams! Someone got me but thank God for swappa.

I purchased a 6s off craigslist as the person "didnt have a car to meet at tmobile".

Anyway long story short i took it in tmobile after i purchased and they said it seemed good on there end but they couldnt tell if it was paid off due to no access to the persons accout.

It worked for 2 weeks then stopped working. I took it in to tmobile and they said the payments werent made on the phone and to turn it back on it would cost 400$.

I sold on swappa and gor my money back lol, but long story short...meet in store with seller!
 
ChristTheSon said:
I tell people all the time you need to meet seller in store if u buy off craiglist. Too many scams! Someone got me but thank God for swappa.

I purchased a 6s off craigslist as the person "didnt have a car to meet at tmobile".

Anyway long story short i took it in tmobile after i purchased and they said it seemed good on there end but they couldnt tell if it was paid off due to no access to the persons accout.

It worked for 2 weeks then stopped working. I took it in to tmobile and they said the payments werent made on the phone and to turn it back on it would cost 400$.

I sold on swappa and gor my money back lol, but long story short...meet in store with seller!
Click to expand...

So you sold a known blacklisted phone on Swappa? Wow.
 
This is a big scam on ebay, CL, even swappa and amazon. They use stolen identities to buy phones for just the down payment on a 2 year plan, then sell them. By the time t mobile bricks the phone its too late for the buyer to get recourse from paypal or ebay or even leave bad feedback to alert other buyers attempting due diligence. I really feel t mobile is being completely irresponsible by not offering a free IMEI check that would reveal past due balances owed on phones for would be buyers who do not want to be part of a market defrauding t mobile.
 
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